crashish

What can I do to prevent the wrinkling of the leather on the seats? Will leather conditioner help the problem?

Novice

According to my experiences, no. People often forget that the TL leather has a thin coat of vinyl on the top and so called leather underneath. Once the vinyl part is wrinkled, no leather conditioner will fix this problem. Also, improper installation of leather covers will cause this problem.

crashish

So is there anything that will help the vinyl, then? My TL is a mere 2 months old and the leather looks almost as old as that in my 89 Mercedes. :-\

Scott in Houston

What color leather?

It seems the black leather wears and shows wear the worst.

Magnutz

Actually - I am having the same challenge - I wonder why it is doing that?

JetJock

Guys, I just got thru with a huge project replacing my front (04) seat leather, bottom cushion, and seat heater. The project was bigger than I expected because to replace the '04 covers with the '05 style, the bottom cushion and seat heater must also be replaced in order for the extra seam to fit properly into the cushion. This also requires replacing the seat heater because of the extra channel cut into the cushion. My dealer was going to dispose of the old '04 cushion and leather, so I decided to take it home and dismantle it. To my suprise, I found the leather to be thicker and much higher quality than I originally thought. There is a thick pad under the leather, and it's not attached or glued to the leather. With the '04 style cushion and cover, the large area under your butt eventually is going to stretch. It's a normal thing for leather to stretch. Because of the pad under the leather not being attached, this causes the leather to "pull" and wrinkle seperate from the padding underneath. This problem is a design defect and not caused by the leather quality. I've seen tons of leather seats in my business, and although I've seen better leather, the leather on our seats is NOT cheap quality. Acura realized this problem and changed the design in 2005 to compensate for this normal stretching. Conditioning the leather might help somewhat, but nothing is going to prevent leather from stretching. Even the thick leather used in sneakers stretches, thus making your old shoes more comfortable over the years. When leather seats are designed, usually they include lots of tufts and wrinkles to "hide" the stretching that is always going to happen sooner or later. If the design of the seat calls for the leather to be "tight", be prepared to eventually end up with normal stretching and wrinkles. It's just what leather does. Nothing you do short of not sitting on the seat is going to prevent wrinkles and stretching. The only thing that can be done is to design more "seams" and "tufts" to mask the stretching.

youngTL

The reason this stretching doesn't happen in say, a Lexus ES330, is because the leather on those seats isn't tight. If you look at a pic or sit in the vehicle, you can see that the leather is "foldy". In other words, they put excess on the seats to give it that swathed look. If Acura did that in the TL, it wouldn't look sporty at all. Even my high quality leather chair at home has buttprints because it's stretched tightly and doesn't have enough seams. And the reason my first gen 2.5TL doesn't have butt prints is because the leather is thick and hide-like. It's not soft at all. It doesn't feel very luxurious even compared to a new Accord.

crashish

Quartz.

Phillyboi

My TL is only two weeks old and the back seats look like its been used for a long time, the sides are wrinkling (black leather) My friends G35c black leather still looks excellent (8 months old).

argarre

My TL is two weeks old and I just noticed on the sides of the back seat the leather looks horrible! First it was the bumpers not matching, now this!!

Toasterthedog

I saw this when I picked up my car for the first time, but just assumed it was normal...although it looks like crap

I don't think my rear seats developed wrinkles, it just looks like whoever assembled them just stuffed em with padding and sewed em up. The non perforated leather looks lumpy and loose. Thank god I don't have to ride in the backseat.

Lazaro1717

Call American Honda's Consumer affairs at 1-800-382-2238 and select option 3. Make sure you have your vehicle identification number to report the seat problem. They will then assign you to a case worker in which they will have your vehicle inspected at the dealer. I have the same problem with my leather front seats. They look like if they have melted. My next step is calling their Legal Department to form this some kind of class action lawsuit. Good luck.

Leo